


Morning Rain

by MatchaMochi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Comfort, M/M, Mushishi AU, Reincarnation, im sorry lance :(, kind of, messed up a bit, mind the violent tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:40:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26479639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MatchaMochi/pseuds/MatchaMochi
Summary: “Fear mainly, but also desperation. Maybe hatred too. It shouldn’t have surprised me, how easy things change. Spring, summer, autumn, winter, everything changes but if it isn’t perfectly balanced there would always be dire consequences. Too hot summers cause fires, long winters steal life. I should have left when I realized things had begun to change too much, but I had fallen too deeply. So maybe one of the reasons are also desire….and love.”---(or in which Lance has a voice that can call rain and Shiro just wants him to stay)
Relationships: Lance/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Morning Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Might be a bit confusing if u haven't seen mushishi but some notes are at the end, its very LOOSELY based anyway haha this was a very self indulgent fic, predictably was listening to Lucy Rose's 'Shiver' while writing this, enjoy I guess

He finds Shiro half-buried in snow, bleeding from one side of his head, lips turning blue from the cold. He tries not to fall from running too fast but he lands on his knees, red-faced and breathing hard, reaching for Shiro’s one hand and flinching from how cold it was.

Small, black vines have started growing around his body, it’s obvious that the mountain god was aware of Shiro’s presence. He brushes off the vines, checks his pulse. He sighs in relief; it’s slow but still pushing steadily.

He carries Shiro to his house beside the frozen stream, though it was more of a slow drag, considering how built Shiro was compared to him. The bleeding was only from a small wound to the side of his right eye. He gains comfort from the small puffs of air he could feel from Shiro as he touches the side of his face softly.

After cleaning and wrapping the dressing on his wound, Lance takes off his straw hat and lays Shiro down right next to the hearth, adds more coal and wood. He tucks him in three blankets before sighing and getting under the covers too.

It’s because body heat is a good and efficient way to chase the cold away he tells himself, and not at all because he wanted to make sure that this was real. That he could hold Shiro like this, head tucked under his chin, hair rough over his fingertips. Had he always had grey hair? Lance can’t remember. It’s been so long.

He closes his eyes and sleeps. The snow falls harder outside, winter taking a harsh turn.

Shiro’s eyes flutter open right when Lance had finished cooking rice and stew for them. He grins at Shiro’s confused stare as he lays the chopsticks on the table.

“I found you outside and brought you in before the cold could get you.” He starts to munch as he points at his head, “You got wounded, I just hope it won’t get infected. Want to join me?”

Shiro stares at him for a long while before he hurriedly nods, saying thanks to him. Lance had expected this, he wonders how he looked like to Shiro. Clearly a foreigner, with his blue eyes and dark skin. Or was he intrigued? By the scars on his face or the easy way Lance speaks his language? It’s a relief that he doesn’t look scared. Shiro is grateful to him and asks him who he was.

Lance blinks for a moment, pauses in the middle of sipping his tea.

Ah, so he doesn’t remember. It’s fine.

“Shirogane Takashi, though I always go by Shiro.” ‘ _I know,_ ’ Lance doesn’t say. He had been a ‘Shiro’ last time too.

He tells Lance that he’d slipped and fallen just as he was looking for branches to build a shelter from the snowstorm he could feel coming. He says he’s a traveller, selling the woodwork he makes, taking jobs sometimes from villages he’d visit. Lance asks him where he was travelling to and Shiro goes quiet, looking down on his lap.

Lance tries to change the subject but Shiro speaks up and his voice is quiet, like he was afraid of mentioning it out loud,

“I think….I’m trying to find something I can never seem to reach.”

It's silent for a while, and in it, Lance could feel his heart thudding, as they ate together in silence.

“What about you?”

“Hmmm?” Lance hums, his smile falters, and he finally says, “I live in the mountain alone. The nearest village is a good two-day walk from here, though the villagers drop by here sometimes to trade with me their food and materials. I get little trinkets here and there from the merchants that cross this mountain. It is a calm, peaceful life.”

“Oh….”

Lance huffs, snickering at Shiro. His eyes shine a bit, from the light radiating in the warm hearth.

“Does it not suit me?”

“No- I mean,”

Lance laughs, reaches out for a long pipe tucked in one of the drawers around the room. He lights it and sighs, smoke spilling out the edges of his mouth like a tired dragon.

“Sounds like a blizzard outside,” and true enough the howling winds increases in volume as the light from outside recedes, making shadows on the cold walls, “It’s better if you stay here with me right?”

“I don’t want to intrude,”

“It’s fine,”

“Thank you so much-”

“Your welcome.” Lance smiles, and this one is real by how his eyes light up with it.

“Lance.” He says quietly.

“Just that. I’ve never known any other name.”

-

-

-

_“Lance.”_

_Shiro’s father blinks in surprise, and his mother pauses too. She resumes wrapping the bandages around Lance’s back as he continues,_

_“M-my name. It’s Lance. Just that.”_

_Shiro had been hiding behind the paper walls when his father had brought the stranger in. He’d told Shiro that he found the young man wandering in the forest; lost and injured._

_Lance tells them that he’s a runaway slave, and he does not say it but it’s clear from the marks on his back that his master was cruel. Shiro readies another futon that night when his father tells him that he’ll need to give Lance some of his clothes. His father is a kind man, and his mother only smiles at Lance softly when he sobs and bows at them in thanks, head pressed to the floor._

_Shiro does not really know what to feel then, he was the son of the village chief, but he had never met anyone quite like Lance._

_Lance helps around the house with his mother, goes out with Shiro and his father to hunt. He works extra hard every time, no doubt feeling indebted that they had taken him in._

_Shiro recalls a summer afternoon when it was just him and Lance in the forest. They were walking idly side by side, having gotten some rabbits for dinner._

_“I don’t remember where I came from.” Lance breaks the peaceful silence, and his voice drifts, sounds far away, “My first memory is waking up by the side of the beach, water up to my waist, sand in my mouth.”_

_He trips a bit but Shiro is quick to hold his hand and keep him steady. Lance smiles up at him in thanks and Shiro mumbles it away. It is summer he reminds himself, the flush at his ears and neck is probably because of the heat._

_It’s when they’ve nearly reached home that Lance stops suddenly, staring at the ground._

_“I….I didn’t run away because I was hurt.”_

_Shiro is puzzled, but it isn’t like they’ve asked him directly about what happened._

_“Then why-”_

_But Lance shakes his head and holds his hand. Shiro can feel it trembling so he lets it drop, murmuring that it’s fine, he doesn’t really need to know._

_The days pass by as quick as the leaves fall to the ground. Sometimes Shiro would stare at Lance when he isn’t looking, and he’ll feel his heartbeat quicken every time Lance smiles._

_It is nothing, it is nothing. But it’s not something new. He keeps this strange infatuation for Lance to himself, though it makes his heart ache so._

_-_

_-_

_-_

The storm still rages on.

Shiro hears a soft humming as they cook together, Lance’s hand brushing his. Shiro feels a sense of nostalgia, though he does not know why. He’s never met anyone like Lance before, with a face that seemed like he was younger than Shiro but eyes as old as the mountain itself.

With how casual his movements were in everything he does, and how softly he smiles when he looks at Shiro. He has never seen scars like Lance has too; crisscrossed around his lips but barely there.

It gets colder and colder but the fire is warm and Lance starts to tell him stories of the travellers and people he’d encountered in the mountain. Shiro listens closely, it must just be his imagination but the firelight looks golden, and his voice lights up the space, even brighter as they laughed together at a passing joke.

Shiro rubs his hand on his leg, resists from rubbing the side of his chest, a sudden hollow aching in his heart. He clears his throat, glances at Lance,

“The ‘Crying Mountain’.”

Lance looks at him questioningly so Shiro continues,

“Why do they call this place that?”

He hums for a while before he answers Shiro, “Well, I have lived here long enough to know that it often rains here during the night.”

He shrugs, “And when the sun rises, the morning dew will fall like tears,”

Lance pauses, and Shiro could hear how his voice shakes quietly as he says,

“The leaves reflect the sunlight beautifully though, so perhaps,” he clears his throat, tries to smile again, “Perhaps, in the morning, I could show you.”

-

-

-

_There’s this tune Lance would sing that goes with Shiro wherever he goes. Each morning he’d hear it softly while Lance is making breakfast with his mother, after their hunt, it’s louder, more enchanting in the tangled branches of the forest._

_One evening, as the sun was setting, orange light bathing them; Shiro had watched as Lance sang to the trees above them, the grass at his feet seemingly wrapping around his toes, the flowers blooming, the rush of wind and water, the birds singing in tandem above them like bells._

_Lance will sing and that night it will rain. The village will cry in elation as their crops grow in abundance and the soil becomes fertile as another day with blessed rain goes by._

_“Hey Shiro, can’t you see it? We aren’t the only ones here, and sometimes, I could hear them whispering to me. Rarely, I’d see a stream of light, so bright it makes my eyes hurt just looking at it.”_

_Shiro would shake his head and Lance would laugh it off and tell him that he’s too serious. Lance is strange….and beautiful, and loud, and someone Shiro feels like holding on to and never letting go._

_He kisses Lance for the first time hidden under trees and the afternoon clouds. The grass under them soft, the blood rushing in his ears. Lance is warm just like the sun, as they hold hands and breathe in shallow gasps._

_Shiro takes off his clothes, kisses his bare shoulders, his sensitive neck, his trembling lips again. Lance cries quietly in pleasure and Shiro sighs along with it, gentle as he takes in this wonderful warmth, heart pounding in his chest._

_It rains again that night, and it does not stop until the next morning._

_-_

_-_

_-_

It takes them two days but the weather calms, the snow melts, and the sun shines. They had pushed the snow away after, and that afternoon Shiro goes out to the forest to hunt. He only has one arm but the sword he has on him is not just for show.

They make a fire outside with the branches Lance had collected, and Shiro feels his breath catch when Lance’s hand brushes with his. Shiro finds himself staring at Lance too long, at how his eyelashes make shadows on his cheeks, and his hair curls around his ears. He flushes in embarrassment when he gets caught and tries to apologize but Lance waves him away with a laugh,

“Are you curious about how it happened?” he points at the scars at his mouth.

Shiro quickly shakes his head but Lance continues with a shrug,

“I don’t really want to tell you how, but I can tell you why.” and it must have been the light from the fire but Shiro sees a stray plant wilting under his feet, shadows covering parts of his face.

“Fear mainly, but also desperation. Maybe hatred too. It shouldn’t have surprised me, how easy things change. Spring, summer, autumn, winter, everything changes but if it isn’t perfectly balanced there would always be dire consequences. Too hot summers cause fires, long winters steal life. I should have left when I realized things had begun to change too much, but I had fallen too deeply. So maybe one of the reasons are also desire….and love.”

-

-

-

_It rains and rains and it keeps on raining._

_Shiro doesn’t mind it, the heavy rain covers everything in grey and the noise hides the sounds they would make every time they hold each other in the forest. It’s obvious that no one must know, but he can’t resist murmuring at Lance’s ear in the morning, smoothing his hands down Lance back where no one could see._

_It’s an undeniable truth, but deep down, he knows this could not last forever. He has to take a wife, he needs to take care of the village, and Shiro has never been this selfish but selfishly he wishes that despite everything Lance would still stay with him; his own warm sun, where he could always go to when the world gets too cold._

_The rain does not stop._

_It floods their harvest, makes everything wet and muddy, the decreasing temperature causing the young and elderly to go ill. Soon, it affects even some of the healthier farmers, a darkening cloud that spreads as one by one the villagers falls sick._

_Shiro’s father has never stopped praying for the sun and yet it never comes._

_Lance has gone quiet, he avoids Shiro when he can. If Shiro goes in the room he’d immediately leave. He doesn’t look at Shiro in the eye, smacks his hand away when Shiro tries to touch him. They do not go to the forest anymore, the only contact he has from Lance is either a nod or a shake of the head. And still, it rains._

_“I’m sorry,” Lance whispers to him one night, rain beating down on the roof, “I’m so, so sorry,” and he could hear how he sobs with it, his voice choking but Lance flinches from his reaching hand so he just murmurs reassurance in reply._

_Shiro has no idea what Lance would be sorry for. He tries to hold his hand but Lance would always run away. Shiro has no time to think about it anyway, when his mother falls ill. It rains and rains from spring to summer to autumn._

_His mother dies in winter, his father follows her the next season._

_The whole village mourns their loss. Shiro does not show his tears outside, he stays in his mother’s room, staring at the floor. Everything has become so unclear; Shiro has to take care of the village, he has to stop this rain, but all he could think about right then was how he misses Lance’s warm touch._

_Shiro is only willing to cry in front of Lance, and it’s as if Lance had heard his silent pleading as he quietly steps in the room that night. Lance holds him tightly, brings Shiro’s face to his chest. Shiro can feel how Lance trembles but he coos softly at Shiro and tells him to, “Breathe, it’s alright now, just breathe,”_

_And Shiro…..Shiro really tries, but suddenly Lance holds him tightly and tells him that he has to leave, that he does not want to hurt Shiro anymore. How can that be? When that was the last thing Shiro wants? How can Lance leave him, when he’s all that he has now?_

_He could not form any words then, but he grips Lance’s wrist until he could see the bruise form in the morning._

_Another quiet night, both of them under the same covers. Shiro tells Lance that he wants to hear Lance sing once more. He does not beg but it is there, in his shaking hands, in his tears that fall down silently. Lance is silent for a long time, and Shiro is almost asleep when he hears his sweet melody._

_Another rainy night, a cacophony that surrounds the whole village. Shiro wakes up to an empty room. He couldn’t find Lance anywhere._

_The morning is quiet, eerily so. He does not why he was running but he’s panting by the time he reaches the forest. The sun shines through gaps in the trees, the stream flows calmly at their many hiding places. The clouds gather, makes strange shadows on the ground. Shiro does found him in the end, huddled beside the small stream they’d sometime cross._

_The waning light, the rush of water, the- the sudden ringing in his head as he steps closer to Lance and notices his bloodied fingers. Lance is in a fetal position, facing away from him, and he doesn’t respond to Shiro at all when Shiro calls his name. His body is shaking so hard some of the leaves on his head flutters away._

_Shiro makes reasons in his head; Lance had tried to leave, he’d stayed the whole night here, it must have rained again. His clothes are in disarray because he must have run here, yes, that must be it._

_He hesitates but he grabs Lance’s shoulder and turns him around and, and, and he thinks he might’ve tripped, or he might’ve held his breath for too long because this can’t be real. His heart bangs in his chest, blood rushing to his ears he tries to reach for the threads sewn clumsily on Lance’s lips, chokes as he hears Lance whimper in pain. There’s dried blood around the edges, some more oozing out._

_Shiro’s shock is quickly overtaken by urgency and he shushes Lance as he carries him and runs back to the house. He lays Lance down, runs around the house searching for a knife, water, and clean cloth. After he cuts the thread, he makes Lance drink opium for the pain. The process of taking the threads out is gory and painful despite the drug. Lance whimpers and sobs, whines out a low cry as the last thread is pulled out._

_It starts to rain._

_Lance wails out a long sobbing cry and thunder cracks suddenly in the sky._

_Shiro shushes him, pulls him so tightly to his chest his sobbing voice goes muffled. He tries to stop Lance from saying anything at all but Lance waves him away and mumbles, his voice slurring through the bandages, that it was a group of men from the village, a few years younger than them but still just as strong. They held him down and he didn’t know how they knew but there was already a rumour going around that he was causing the rain._

_Lance tells him that he has to leave, that it’s the only way. Shiro needs to stay here, needs to take care of the village._

_Shiro is torn. He wants to be selfish, but he needs to be a leader. He wants to keep Lance, but he can’t risk the villager’s lives. He thinks about going with Lance, and running away, leaving everything behind._

_Lance makes the decision for him anyway. He leaves in the middle of the night, silent as a shadow._

_The morning dew shines beautifully with the rising sun. Shiro wilts in his absence, though the sun shines on the village once again. Perhaps this is what his father felt like when he died of heartbreak._

_He gathers the men who’d confessed what they did after Shiro threatens them, beats them black and blue and tells them to leave the village. He feels no satisfaction in it. They were just boys; Lance would have been disappointed in him._

_The seasons change and the years pass by, his hair turns grey, his wrinkles increases. He misses the heavy rain, craves its smell, and its soft sounds. He walks in the forest and misses his lovers touch, and the warmth in his voice, melodious._

_Shiro dies with his family but all he could think of was the dark blue of Lance's eyes, like the sky above him, ready for another downpour._

_-_

_-_

_He is born again, and he is a wolf, estranged from his pack, running from forest to forest, searching for a voice he can’t quite remember._

_-_

_-_

_He is a tree, stretching its branches to the sky, love blooming from its leaves as it rains again._

_-_

_-_

_He is an orphan with naturally grey hair and one arm. He travels from one place to another still searching for that sweet sound. Whenever it rains, he smiles softly to the sky and hums a love song._

_-_

_-_

_-_

The snow has cleared. The winter calms down, paving its way for spring.

Lance stares at Shiro and wishes they could stay just like this, forever. He crouches low and remembers years and years ago where he had left his heart in a village, where he’d followed the path of the light vein, no matter how much his eyes burned with it.

He had grown a few years older, the first time he’d step foot in this mountain, lost and empty. The deer he meets in his path has moss and flowers growing on their head like a crown, when they had spoken to him Lance had accepted it like how he’d see small colourful particles sometimes, floating in the air.

The mountain god had taken pity on him when they heard Lance’s story. They told him that they’ll let him stay in the mountain until he finds his heart again. Lance does not know what that means at all, and it’s also curious how the mountain god had made him age slowly for so long, how they’d maintained balance within the mountain considering his tendency to call the rain with his voice.

But Lance had been living in this mountain for so long that he does not question it, has gotten used to it even. He’d seen the mountain god change from the deer, to the catfish, to the boar, the turtle, and now, the bear.

Another curious thing; how he knew the minute Shiro had entered the mountain, how he even knew it was Shiro at all. It had been so long, he doesn’t even know if Shiro still wanted him.

The day Shiro decided to leave, was the first day of spring.

Lance waves him goodbye and feels tears welling up when Shiro turns his back. He opens his mouth, closes it again.

Takes a deep breath and sings to the sky above them.

He closes his eyes and does not open them until he hears footsteps rushing to him.

Shiro stares at him, wide-eyed and face pale. His knees shake and he falls to the ground, his voice rasping, “L-Lance, _Lance-_ ”

Lance is surprised at first, he didn’t know Shiro would ever remember really. Then he smiles, shaky and small, eyes wet as he murmurs, “Shiro,”

And Shiro crushes him in a hug, hand stroking his hair, sobbing and inhaling the scent of rain from Lance. Lance beams up at him, cheeks wet and he says “Welcome home.”

_“I’m home, I’m home,”_

Shiro shakes his head and brushes his lips at Lance’s cheek, eyelids, kisses him slowly, breathing him in. Maybe they’ll leave the mountain, maybe not. Now that Shiro’s here he doesn’t think the mountain god will help him anymore. But its fine, he has Shiro with him now, and tomorrow feels like it’ll be another rainy day.

- _fin-_

**Author's Note:**

> Mushi --> also known as Midorimono (緑の物, lit. Green Thing), have been described as "life in its purest form", they are seemingly magical creatures which make their home in rural areas, and most of them depend upon either forest or human life in order to live; this is why they are considered a form of parasite
> 
> Mugura --> vine-like or neuron-like appearance that transfuses with the vegetation on a mountain, they are grey or black in color, can combine with a Mushi Master to allow them to keep an eye on all the things happening on their mountain
> 
> Mountain god --> protectorate of a natural place (i.e. a mountain), the "Master" can be human, animal, or Mushi, their job is simply to keep everything in balance
> 
> Path of the Light Vein --> the River of Light (光脈 / 光の流れ Kōmyaku / Kōnonagare) is a stream of glittering, embryonic Mushi called Kouki, flowing beneath the surface of the earth and traversing the entire world
> 
> ah now I feel like reading mushishi again.....
> 
> I'm gonna start a new sem soon and this might just be the last fic I'm writing in a longggg while! stay safe and healthy! drink lots of water! till the next fic....bai baiii
> 
> Thnks for reading!
> 
> I have a [twitter](https://twitter.com/crazydurians)! and check out my other [fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MatchaMochi/works) too! 
> 
> Comments and kudos are highly appreciated!


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